Teach English in Zhuangshang Zhen - Luliang Shi

Many people around the world may have asked themselves this question. What is the difference between learning the first language compared to the second? There are many theories on this topic that will be discussed in the following paragraphs. The first topic is relating to the acquisition of the first language which is learnt through necessity. The first language is usually taught by a parent or guardian starting as early as the fetal stage of development where the mother sings to the unborn child during the pregnancy. The process of speaking and/or singing continues long after birth and into childhood. By this time the child develops a basic understanding of the first spoken language and uses it to communicate needs or desires to the parent or guardian. Once the child reaches a certain stage in life, he/she is generally ready to attend schools which aids in expanding the child's knowledge of the language further by teaching new words, phrases, reading, writing, grammar and pronunciation. This gives the child a great advantage to learning because not are they only learning at school, they are also learning through immersion and are actively using the language skills in their daily life. As the child grows into early adulthood, they almost effortlessly learn to be fluent in the first language. The learning of the second language in most case's can be very different. Generally, a second language is learned though desire, at this point the person would typically already understand their native tongue on some level of proficiency and would attempt to make connections between the first and second language to aid in the learning process. The second language is usually learned a lot slower because it is usually not used in daily life as opposed to the first. Due to the inability to actively use the second language, the person does not develop fluency as quickly or easily and would typically study the language over an extended period while maintaining difficulties in producing fluent speech. However, different circumstances can change the way a person learns a second language and we will explore that concept next. The acquisition of the second language may or may not be out of necessity. Depending on how you look at the circumstances in which the language is learned. For example, it would be a necessity if the person in question had moved to another country where their native language is not used. This would force them to learn to communicate at a much faster rate because they would be using it in their daily life to communicate needs and/or desires. Another idea to think about is if the person learning the languages has parents that speak different languages. For example, the mother could be fluent in Korean whilst the father could be fluent in English. The learning process of the two languages could come together ultimately resulting in the acquisition of multiple languages. Keep in mind that whichever country the person lives in, they would undoubtedly be more proficient in the language spoken in that country than the language spoken by the other parent. It is my opinion that the only difference between learning multiple languages is the ability to actively use the target language in daily life and become fluent through immersion. Any Language can be learnt, the most efficient way I can think of is to do this by surrounding yourself with the people who speak the second language. This could give the learner the same advantages received when learning their native language as a child. So again, we ask ourselves what is the difference between learning the first language as opposed to the second? Well, there could still be many differences, I have only stated a few and its up to you to investigate further. Thank you for reading.